This is certainly not my best and there are much better tutorials out there. I just wanted to throw something together quickly since some of my friends and I have been talking about how to draw wings. I promised I would do this. I do plan to refine this over time. So much was left out like aerodynamics, wings closed, wing poses and other things. I could go into feather anatomy alone and take up a good portion of the page just for types of feathers. But for now I focused on how to make the shapes and the feathers on wings. One of my pet peeves is upside down wings and people drawing undersides as top sides on birds, angels etc. But this is a basic thing to just give you a feel of how to move your pencil or stylus. Yes I made it both a mix of digital and traditional. Already had the digital wings from an older drawing and traditional is faster and easier so there combination. Another important thing to know and I see this mistake often is that people don't realize there is a membrane from the shoulder to the wrist that gives the wing its shape for lift. Birds can't stretch their bones all the way like we can. We don't have membranes. So they are never at full length, and there should never be an extra joint in the wing as though there were. Elbow always points down, don't rip bird wings please. I still hope to show things too like how feathers bend with wing beats. But this is ok for now. Will definitely go into scraps.

Thank you so much for posting this, I must say this is the best bird wing tutorial I ever came across. Despite it is simple, it is very informative and straight to point. It is good that you demonstrate the feather direction for both upper wings and lower wings. After seeing this ref, I realized that I've been drawing the underwing and some of the feather direction wrong. I will definitely reference this wing for the feather pattern and improve myself.

Despite the fact it is basic, it is very informative and helpful. Thank you for explaining the whole backwards wing thing, I would actually have never noticed that. I will refer to this if I decide to draw properly one day.

This is a nice tutorial, simple and informative, with the main important points. I think I still get confused with the overlapping of secondary feathers. It gets puzzling when the wings are folded. I'll definitely refer to this.

Thank you. Just wanted to get some basics out since some friends had asked me questions. I do too. It's tricky sometimes. For me when I'm lazy it's easier to draw wings from underneath. I'm glad you liked this.

This is a really helpful tutorial, thank you for making this. One day i might do one. One of my pet peeves in terms of drawing birds are corws and ravens with yellow bill and legs without nasal bristles, oh man i always cringe when i see one and i don't even consider that bird a raven or crow.

You're welcome. I'm glad you liked it. I hope to have some time to make this right one day though. I saw that on your profile. When I learned that nasal bristles were a characteristic of Corvids I have always drawn them that way so they are correct. As for the yellow well we've got cartoons to blame for that. The only exception I can think of is the Alpine Chough. I'm lucky to have seen these cute birds in person.

This is really helpful. I'm kind of embarrassed to have had birds all these years and draw them so much without thinking about the structure. I know I surely I have read about it before, but never put the information into practice.

Closed wings would certainly help me a lot since I struggle with those and also foreshortening some more difficult views of the flight.But this is great for beginners and it also shows the feather lines and shapes which should be drawn. I see a lot of wings that lack mass and just flight logic, especially with angels. They have the 'arm' and then long pointy feathers, just one line of those with little regard to positioning. I'll be saving this tutorial to use in the future of my practices

Yeah sure. Ok I should be able to draw something up for that later on. One bit of advice on closed wings. The primaries slip under the secondaries. So they are on top, and the primaries poke out the back. It's kind of like one of those folding hand fans.Oh gosh yeah I've seen some terrible wings on angels. I hate the angel wings in Darksiders and I've been watching Justice League and can't stand it when I see Hawk Girl. The horror. Thanks. I'm glad you liked my tutorial.

Oh I get it, I see it a lot anyway so I got that part. Sometimes the wings blend with the body on certain photos and its hard to see.Hah, animations and some shows just favor size and form over proper anatomy. Sometimes it actually looks good and functional, but mostly not.

I hope this proves useful to many people, and gosh THANK YOU for mentioning that problem with upside down wings!!! That is my greatest pet peeve, I don't understand how people can miss this detail. There should be no excuse to draw the primaries wrong, it just looks bad and I see it all the time. -_-"

It's so easy to make the mistake as under wings are so much easier to draw. You just naturally want to complete the curve. I had to redraw the pigeon wing because I screwed that up on my own tutorial But now it's right as that's an upper wing. Glad I brought up an important point for you. I do hope this will help get people started. I do plan to add more to it or maybe once I fix this one up make it a two parter.

I remember when I used to make the mistake back in 2014, it's so cringey to look at now. Surprisingly I find the tops of wings easier to draw these days, I'm not sure why. Well it's good you caught your mistake, since otherwise it wouldn't have been so helpful a tutorial. I hope so as well, I'll need to show this to people from time to time. It would be interesting to see you add mote pointers to this tutorial.

Funny enough I never noticed that. The only thing that used to bother me but you don't do anymore is not erase the guideline on the secondaries. I hated that and when I commissioned you for Phage I said no cheating on secondaries. When I'm making sketches just for me and for fun I am lazy and draw everything as bottom wings. For me it's easier to do one pencil stroke than to do the two arrows I show for top wings. Top wings take more time and concentration for me. Luckily you're almost always looking up at bird wings so I don't draw them often, though all the pretty colors are usually on the top. Yes I need to ink the traditional are and get rid of the hand written stuff for starters. Then more does need to be added. But I just felt a need to get this out already.

Lol really? It bothers me so much now. I think that I stopped cheating after that commission with the feathers, I admit it bothers me too nowadays. The line art looks pretty messy to me so I'm glad I improved on that. I actually enjoy drawing the tops of wings more, plus they're more well defined on birds so I'm more confident I get them more or less correct. But then, that's just me and I can see why bottom wings would be easier for many. I'm glad you got this out in that case.

Thank you very much for the basic tutorial post. I can see the problem with both drawing upside down bird wings and stretched wings now that you have explained this. I'm also thinking of choosing either eagle wings or falcon wings for Joan of Arc as I was telling Gamma that her preferred method of assault is to dive down on her enemies.

I saw a video of a falcon striking down an invading eagle in flight before so I think they are a great choice for Joan, because I actually see my version of her to be nearly as savage and violent as Pec himself, as she'll most often strike every weapon in her arsenal right into Pec's Face the same time Pec bites into her and thrashes Joan about like carnivorous mammal on a roll of newspaper. I've even been imagining a type of monstrous screech she would make as well.

Oh maybe we've seen the same one. I was going to show you one that was amazing. Here's the one I've seen.youtu.be/sx96Xyq3HdYHa, I can imagine that. That would be great if you could find a roar or screech for her. I love figuring stuff like that out.

That was an awesome video, I like the part where the eagle almost lands into the water due to that falcon, though I did not see this video before. I think it was actually a hawk in the one I saw and although I could not find it, I did find this one. youtu.be/Hpz66RYD110Joan's screech would mostly consist of that similar to most birds of prey and she'll even scream it into Pec's face in the hopes of splitting his ear drums while being thrashed about.

It was amazing. Yeah the eagle was freaking out and almost fell in the water. Kept losing altitude. Good thing he escaped finally. Ah I've seen that one. They didn't finish filming. He hit the hawk hard but they didn't show what happened after that. I don't think he died. Was just hurt.Funny enough most birds of prey have very wimpy whistle calls as their main sound. Bald eagles and ospreys chirp. Of course the red tail hawk is the famous screech you hear in all movies. A pet peeve of mine because they gift that sound to almost any bird and even in the wrong countries. Same for bluejay.